Defense:
30

Utility:
0

Introduction

Hello and welcome to my Guide, My name is MrSwifty and I have been playing LOL and other MOBA games for the past 8 years. My jounries have taken me deep into the heart of the MOBA community and my knowledge and curiosity have finally caught up with me to allow for my first guide to appear among, hopefully, the great guides. Seeing as this is my first guide I would like to begin by addressing one of my favorite Champions: Udyr. Udyr represents my love for experimenting and flexibility in MOBA games such as LOL, and he will be our focus in this guide as we unravel not only his inner workings but his potential as a Tank and defender of teams. So without further ado I would like to delve into the Champion that is Udyr and my interpritation of him.

Meet your Swiss Knife.

The one thing that stands out for me about Udyr is that he is amazingly Flexible and Adaptable. He can manage to take over a variety of roles, mainly staying close to the roles of ADC, and Jungle. But Udyr is much more than just a jungler and DPS Bruiser. He can even be played succesfully as a Support and most importantly, the role we will be covering in this guide, a Tank. Now keep in mind that flexibility does not always mean ideal. Udyr is the literal Swiss Knife of League of Legends. Udyr's Skills are designed to make him a steam roller that doesnt back down easily if built well. His abilities allow him to constantly harass the opponent with damage, utilities, while being able to take quite a few hits himself. What most people dont realize about Udyr is that his natural tankiness goes far beyond simply making him a bruiser. As we begin to unravel this intresting Champ, keep in mind that the focus here is adaptability. No matter what way you play Udyr there is no cookie cutter style for him, he must be treated as someone that adapts to his enemies line up. Keeping that in mind this guide is aimed at the more skilled players out there, however those man enough to give him a try may certainly do so. I do hope you enjoy this guide and benefit from it, lets get started.

Pros / Cons

Pros

Immensily Flexible
Low Ability Cooldowns
Naturally Tanky
Has Stun Utility and movment speed boost in one skill!
Can utilize both AD and AP to deal impressive damage early to mid game
Has a low cooldown shield that benefits from armor and magic resist

Cons

Is a difficult champion to master.
Can fall behind if he has no farm.
Requires attention to enemy line up and item builds.
Has a weak Magic Resist Gain per level.
Has Mana issues early game.

Runes

As I have said Ealier Udyr must be played with adaptability in mind, while there are good builds that can be used for almost every game. He benefits more from dismataling the enemy line up by damage type and using this knowledge to build himself according to their agrresion. However, because runes cant be changed during a game or even once in queue, I have placed specific runes to go with most cases. The Attack speed marks are put in place to take advantage of both his turtle stance passive and his more deadly phoenix stance passive. since PS(phoenix stance) has a static area burst damage effect upon udyrs 3rd consecutive hit, the attack speed runes enable him to take advantage of this without needing to sacrifice points or items in dps. On the other hand TS(turtle stance) passice enable udyr to stay in lane far longer than most champions as he is able to regain mana and HP through auto attacks. the attack speed is placed here to increase this effect. This build also takes health regen into account to sustain him even more in lane. armor seals are added to reduce early game auto attack damage when it counts. Udyr greatly lacks MR per level. so this flaw will be provided for in full by giving him MR per Lvl glyphs and quients. These Runes provide Udyr with useful benefits to offset his weaknesses.

Masteries

For Udyr I recommend your own personal choice of the defences tree. For this Tank build Udyr needs nothing else except for whats in the defence tree. I would however avoid placing any points in lengendary armor, as the 5% in bonus MR and Armor wont do you any good in the late game where the percentage actually makes a difference as MR and Armor reduce in effectivness per point the more points you have. instead use these points for other bonuses. Never underestimate damage block and auto attack damage blocks, they help you immensly early game and allow Udyr to give zero ****s in the laning phase. If you are unsure of what to take simply follow the premade masteries in my guide they are a sure fire way to stay tanky.

Items

By far the most important part of this guide is the items you're Udyr will pick up. Ive already given a list of the best items there are for him to choose from. This section will go into more detail about specifics on how to establish dominance in your lane. To begin every game should start with a dorans shield, this is one of the best tanking items to go for however you could also begin with a cloth armor and five health potions, this may give you more armor but it wont be as reliable in lane and will sevierly reduce his effectivness early on. The Dorans Shield just provides too many good stats early on to pass up. after your Dorans you should opt for either the ninja tabi or the mercury treads. Usually I would go for the mercury treads as this will give you a defence against disables from opponents. your main core item of choice after this is a sunfire cape. It allows you to deal excellent damage with your phoenix stance, with this you are able to clear waves easily. Use the sunfire cape to your advantage when your opponent in lane is away in a fight or at base as you can easily push his tower at this point. after the sunfire cape comes the runic bullwark. this item provides not only you with excellent stat gains but your team as well. use it to blance out the equation of armor and magic resist. From here you go straight into warmogs armor to give you that massive HP boost and godly regen. Your finally two items will depend on what you need most. if you have an enemy carry who relies on attack speed to deal damage get a frozen hear, if you have a heavy AD carry enemy, go for thornmail, if the enemy team is mostly MD based go for spirit visage for the magic resist and cooldown. Which ever item path you go for remmeber that it all depends what your enemy is getting and what their overall damage out put shifts toward. If you are unsure of what the enemy team is building, you can always check your death stats when you are slain, however unlikely that may be, it provides you with amazing indicators of not only enemy abilities and their damage type, but percentages based on what damage was dealt most to you. Use this to your advantage and make quick intellegent decisions.

Tips and Tricks

When in lane your TS passive will require you to push the lane in order to regen. this may seem like a disadvantage, but the tankiness of Udyr will surprise gankers and you can get away and often even grab a kill under your tower when they chase a presumably dead udyr. Now dont be foolish, every Champ has his limits and you can rely on his mana pull and early game tankiness forever. just be sure to attack the tower when ever possible.

Keep in mind that if your opponent is weak and has no more regen but is still staying in lane, force him out by activating PS and using the passive to hit Minions allowing the aoe to reach the opponent champoion damaging him for a descent chunk of his HP, or just hit him with the 3rd auto attack yourself if he is foolish enough to get close.

When facing melee or even ranged champions dont underestimate Udyrs capability to do nothing. let them attack you while you farm and regen with turtle allowing your minions to focus fire them instead, in turn you will still remain mostly at high HP and he will have taken almost have or a quarter of his hp in damage. The number of player who dont realize the minion damage stacking up is amazing.

Often times Udyr can simply not give a **** because he is so tanky through out the game. use this to push the lane and force your opponent out of exp and gold. This will attract gankers to come and visit your lane, prove them wrong and run back to your base using your BS for stuns and turtle for skill dodging as well as your heal and barrier to troll their ***es. this will result in either you getting killed which happens 1 out of 6 times or one or even two of the gankers dyign under your tower which occurs 2 out of 6 times, lastly and most commonly you will escape and they will have wasted precious time attempting the gank and will be forced to move back again 3 out of 6 times. Thanks tp udyrs amazing regen he is able to heal back up in lane and continue his push.

Lastly, Try and take the tower damage for your team as often as you can as your armor and masteries will make the tower easy to handle while your team takes out the enemy champions. Keep in mind that if you are low towers can still kill you, so make sure you dont allow your phoenix stance to agro the tower when you accidently hit the enemy champion, this becomes a permenant problem once you get either thornmail or Sunfire Cape with their perma AOE damage and Damge return. The enemy Champs might notice this and use it to make you take unneccesary damage.

Skill Sequence

Here is where the fun comes in. Udyr's abilities arent difficult to figure out. Your TS is for defence, your BS is for escape and chase as well as stunning and ult dissruption, and your PS is for AOE DPS in teamfights as well as minion wave clearing and tower pushing. Your TS is not utilized in this build as the skill is important enough until the late game where the damage simply adds a bit more to your overall output. To begin, when your in lane be sure to mostly stay on turtle stance as you will be maxing it out first and using it to stay regened and to eat up those delicious skill shots and watch your opponent slowly realize he cant to **** to you (its the best feeling in the world believe me.) if you do get into a skrimish with a tough enemy such as teemo, be sure to play it safe your not made of diamonds here. if you have a melee opponent, wait for them to get comfortable with his farming after he realizes he cant harass you well enough, then pop your PS and try to get off 3 hits to proc your PS passive, this will bring him to about half hp and make him think twice about engaging you. The best part here is that if he is melee zoning him out will be much easier to do. after maxing out TS finish up PS then move to BS to complete your core skills. When is comes to using the bear stance, try to wait for the momment when your TS runs out and the enemies skills are off cooldown, because if you pop it too early the damage well really play a number on you. Even if your being chased down be sure to sometimes turn around and stun the enemy if their disable is coming off cooldown as it will actually buy you some time to get ahead of them. Make certain that you dont stay in lane too long, as you will eventually need to get items and help your team. Remmeber that your mana pool cant handle excessive use of your skills for too long, so switch from passive farming and regen mode to active attack and escape mode sparingly early game. Besides what ive described so far, playing and using Udyrs skills in different situations depends on your skill alone, if you feel turning around for a quick stun is beneficial do so, if you see an opening for some damage take it, playing udyr as a tank allows for a bit of breathing room as you have chances to make mistakes and get away with it. This reason makes playing Udyr fun especially for beginners who still need to learn the way of the beast man. Whenever your in trouble, wether it be early or late game, trust in your TS it saves your life more than you care to mention. However dont underestimate the power of a stun during an enemy tower dive, it can net you a counter kill while even staying alive yourself.

Summoner Spells

Mainly your two spells of choice will always be Heal, and Barrier, chosen for obvious reasons, In adition the Heal is upgraded by giving you 5 hp per lvl bonus which ammounts to 90 extra HP by level 18, and your barrier recieves 20 bonus shield points. You could switch barrier out for cleance, but the Mercury Treads and Tenacity mastery should be enough to give you disable resitance a plenty. Remmeber that when ganks and teamfights come up Heal and Barrier are your friends, they will save you when ganks come to top lane and surprise and troll enemies when you are near dead but never truly dead. Feel free to experiment and bring this build further by giving yourself other summoner spells if you feel they might be more useful.

Team Work

This is where I love Udyr the most. When I first started MOBA games I loved playing supports, because helping my team was fun and made me feel happy and glad to be able to play such an active role in improving other peoples gameplay experience. However I soon learned that every memmber of the team can help one another right down to the carry. Udyr may seem useless to the naked eye when it comes to teamwork, but he packs a real punch under all that fur and muscle. When in a skrimish or team fight, use your stun to disable key targets who may be chasing after your carry or other teamates, feel free to roam around in the fight as you wont be targeted easily. The best way to use your power is to scare off engaging carries and bruisers forcing them away from your carry, buy stunning and then switching to PS to deal good damage forcing them to move back, this action alone will cripple the enemy team leaving their tank to take the full force of your team allowing them to focus him down and then move to the rest of the enemy champs. Your PS, SunfireCape, and PS passive allow you to deal great AOE damage in surpise bursts, use this on crowded enemies to scatter them. Remmeber that the name of the game for you is annoyance, your stun cant be used on the same hero for seven seconds but that doesnt mean other heroes cant be targeted. I also have to mention, if you see a fiddle or nunu or anyone else charging up their ult simply move in and cancle it, the enemy team will lose a great innititation tool and you will be rewarded with a successful teamfight. Remmber you are the tank, so be sure to take the damage for your team, dont stand on the side lines and wait for a kill, you need to be in there distracting and handling the damage from their skills. Eat Caitlyn Shots and EZ spells, do anything you can to take damage away from your teammates. If you die, no worries it happens and you are meant for it.

Closing Thoughts

Iam so often thought of as a noob and laughed at when I choose Udyr for top, however prove them wrong and show this community that unique builds and champions like Udyr have not been forgotten. Show them his power, and make this game a little more intresting, If you have questions please do comment on the Guide as I will be updating it as my journey continues and Hopefully I will be posting new guides soon. Thank you so very much for considering my guide and I do hope you enjoy Udyr the unlikely adaptable Tank!

League of Legends is a team based, real time strategy game set in a mythical world of swords & magic where epic battles decide the fate of mystical nations. Game players take on the role of a Summoner who conjures and controls champions to fight for them at the Institute of War. During game play champions gain experience and items to enhance their skills and abilities. How players develop and play their champions can be the difference between a crushing defeat or a glorious victory!